


Begin in Smudge

by Crowgirl



Series: The Cafe [10]
Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Awkward Romance, Awkwardness, Backstory, Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-01 08:58:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: Bonfire Night.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhonllor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhonllor/gifts).



Afterwards, Foyle will look back and wonder what kept them continually in each other’s company and physically apart those three months. 

He had been aware at the time that there was nothing stopping either of them from reaching out to the other -- there was no good reason for Paul to go home to Alice’s apartment every night -- but somehow he always did. It was as though they kept coming to the point immediately _before_ touch-- and stopping there. 

It wasn’t unsatisfactory -- Paul’s company could never be that -- but it was -- frustrating. And doubly frustrating because he had no idea how they had come to be stuck here and therefore could think of no way to change the situation. Paul was in the cafe almost every day; if he wasn’t, then Foyle was meeting him somewhere around the university, even in Alice’s apartment for dinner on two occasions. It was as if they had skipped straight to the ease of a long-time relationship but without the benefit of physical contact and Foyle is not ascetic enough to find that anything but frustrating. 

He and Paul did everything but actually _touch_ each other until the night of the Andrew’s Guy Fawkes bonfire. 

* * *

‘Oh, come on, Dad, you have to come down--’ Andrew stops on his way out the front door with a box of plastic cups in his arms.

Foyle gives him a dubious look over the till. ‘I don’t think I do.’

‘Everyone will want to thank you for the food.’

‘An excellent reason for me to stay away.’

Andrew laughs. ‘You helped us so much -- you should get to enjoy the party, too.’

Foyle raises his eyebrows and does not comment on how he hasn’t been to a party, quote unquote, in something like fifteen years and hasn’t felt the lack. ‘You’re letting the cold in.’

Andrew takes a deliberate step back to push the door further open. ‘I’ll keep doing it until you agree to come down.’

Foyle snorts. ‘Oh, all right. Let me close up.’

Andrew narrows his eyes. ‘Paul’s coming down after his last class. So if this is some devious attempt to slip out the back door--’

‘It isn’t, it isn’t.’ Foyle waves at Andrew to get out the door and unlocks the till to start counting out the drawer. ‘I’ll be down, I promise.’


	2. Chapter 2

Paul comes in just as Foyle is closing the small safe below the counter, bringing a draft of cold, salt-smelling air with him. He drops his bag by the door and smiles as Foyle straightens up. ‘Hello.’

‘Aren’t you early?’ Foyle pulls out the empty drawer of the till, focusing on making sure it balances correctly -- too far forward and the whole till will crash onto the floor -- rather than on the warm tightness in the pit of his stomach that comes from Paul’s presence. 

Paul nods. ‘A little. Are you complaining?’

Foyle shakes his head. ‘Of course not.’

Paul walks across the room, limping only slightly, Foyle notices, and props his forearms on the counter. ‘Is everyone gone already?’

Foyle hesitates for a breath, then puts his hands on top of Paul’s. ‘You’re cold.’ Paul’s wearing a jacket but it’s too light and not lined; Foyle’s pointed out before that he needs something better as the weather turns colder and Paul simply shrugs the comment away. 

‘It’s chilly out.’ Paul squeezes Foyle’s fingers. 

‘Do you want a coffee before you go down?’

‘Before _we_ go down,’ Paul corrects. ‘And, no, thanks.’ He tugs slightly on Foyle’s hands. ‘Come on, get your coat -- or Andrew will wonder what we’ve been up to.’ 


	3. Chapter 3

Paul takes a sip from his cup and coughs. ‘Good -- grief, who mixed this?’

‘Sam, I think.’ Foyle cranes to look. ‘Mmm, yes, that looks like her.’

‘You can tell from the _color?’_

‘She favors curaçao.’

‘Ah.’ Paul glances at the noisy group closer to the fire and carefully sets his cup down in the lee of the cardboard box of empties. 

They stand for a minute in comfortable silence, then Paul turns. ‘Come for a walk with me. I’ve been inside all day.’

* * *

‘Oh, look--’ Paul kicks at something on the hardpacked sand, then bends down.

‘What is it?’ Foyle shivers and shrugs deeper into his jacket, wishing he’d thought to add another layer. Whatever anyone else says, November is winter and the wind off the water is cold. He hears a wave of laughter from down the beach behind them and adds a mental proviso: unless you’re six inches from a bonfire and, possibly, drinking a little more than is good for you.

‘Look--’ Paul straightens up and holds something out in his palm.

Foyle squints and, without thinking, puts his hand under Paul’s, raising and tilting them both towards the light from the fire. Paul’s fingers are still chilly and he hears Paul’s breath hitch briefly. It’s strange, he thinks in passing, that Paul should react so strongly to such an insignificant touch; it makes him wonder what the reaction would be to something ...less insignificant and that’s a train of thought he stamps down immediately: far too dangerous.

‘I haven’t found one of these in years--’ Paul steadies Foyle’s hand with his own, then tilts his palm, letting a small hard something drop onto Foyle’s palm.

Foyle fumbles in his pocket until he finds his keyring and clicks on the tiny LED light he keeps so he can find his lock at night. For a minute, he thinks Paul’s found a fragment of brick but when he shifts the light, the stone glows. ‘Oh -- lovely--’

‘Alice used to make a collection of them every time we came down,’ Paul says quietly, leaning in to look at the stone. ‘She had shoeboxes--’

‘Of carnelians?’ Foyle looks up, startled. He’s found a few in his time, of course, but never _that_ many.

Paul laughs. ‘Well, some. And shells and whatever else she thought was interesting.’

‘And you?’ Foyle holds the small stone up against the light, admiring the warm glow. ‘What did you think was interesting?’ He glances up but Paul’s face is mostly in shadow.

‘Same things -- just not as many as her. She’s more of a packrat than I am.’

‘Do you still have any?’ 

Paul shakes his head. ‘I used up the last few I had for an art project my last year of school and I lost that years ago.’ 

‘Well, it’s beautiful.’ Foyle clicks the light off and holds the stone out to Paul. 

‘Keep it.’ 

Foyle feels Paul’s fingers close over his own, the stone a cold weight in his palm, and it feels as though the gesture snaps something that had been drawn tight and he leans forward over their joined hands and kisses Paul.

Paul is still for a moment -- startlement, Foyle thinks later -- and then his free hand comes warm to Foyle’s cheek and he pulls back far enough to say, _‘That’s_ what it takes? God, I’d’ve been looking for carnelians _months_ ago--’

Foyle doesn’t have time to make any response before Paul’s kissing him again, pulling him in with the hand that’s still holding the carnelian.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check the tags before reading.

The house is dark, the front hall cold, and Foyle has a moment of doubt as to whether this was a good idea. It isn’t as though the house could be anything other than cold and dark since he hasn’t been in it for twelve hours and he’s suddenly unsure this is the way he wants Paul to see it for the first time. Being somewhere not a public beach had been so clearly their joint thought twenty minutes ago that his house had seemed the obvious choice. Too late now. Foyle snaps on the hall light and turns back towards the door. Paul’s standing close by him, squinting a little against the brightness and he smiles. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello.’ Foyle wonders if he looks as awkward as he feels; reaching to drop his keys in the wooden bowl on the hall table feels like something he’s never done before. 

‘I haven’t been in an actual proper _house_ in so long -- it seems huge.’ Paul shrugs off his jacket -- _too light,_ Foyle thinks again, as he takes it to hang on the pegs beside his own. 

‘Live in it with an adolescent boy and it quickly becomes too small.’

Paul laughs. ‘It’s just you and Andrew?’

‘It was for a few summers -- I didn’t move down here until two years ago.’ Foyle hangs up his own coat. ‘And by then Andrew was on his own. He hasn’t lived here in years.’

‘Ah.’ 

‘So --’ Foyle pauses. ‘--if you were waiting for him to knock the door down--’

‘No, not at all.’ Paul hesitates for a second. ‘You -- don’t talk about your family. At all. I just --’ He hesitates again, then shrugs and Foyle wonders when Paul’s expressions had ceased being opaque to him. He understands as clearly as if Paul had said it aloud that Foyle hadn’t offered and Paul hadn’t wanted to intrude.

Foyle shakes his head and, deliberately, reaches out to take Paul’s hand. ‘At this point, you’re probably entitled to ask. But it isn’t very comfortable standing here; come on.’

* * *

Foyle takes the time to start a fire in the squat little stove in the fireplace; his mother would have hated it but he hates cleaning the fireplace, so this is a compromise between her memory and his housecleaning. Paul takes a circuit of the room and finally ends up in front of the tall bookshelf beside the fireplace.

Foyle stays where he is, one knee down on the hearth, watching Paul look over the books. He can tell when Paul gets to the bottom row -- Rosalind’s art books -- and he closes the door of the stove. ‘My wife’s. Andrew uses them sometimes.’

‘Ah.’ Paul takes a step back and stands between the bookshelf and the end of the sofa as if not quite sure what to do with himself.

‘He tells me the ones she wrote are quite rare now.’ Paul nods but says nothing, looking down at the books as if they might spring to life and bite him. Foyle shuts the stove door and pushes himself to his feet, brushing his hands clean of non-existent dust. ‘It’s all right, Paul.’ He doesn’t know what else to say, really -- this isn’t a conversation he’s had to have before. 

There hadn’t been anyone to tell about Rosalind’s death. Her family had known as soon as he had; he and Andrew had been at the hospital; and his only close friend at the time had been the one arranging coverage for him at the station. There had never been a need to explain what had happened. 

Foyle clears his throat and puts his hands in his pockets for lack of anything better to do with them. He glances down at the stove but he knows already there’s nothing for him to fuss with there. ‘She died nine years ago.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Paul turns towards him immediately.

‘Thank you.’ Foyle nods and rubs a hand back over his head, adding, ‘It was -- a stupid accident, really. She took a fall. At the pool -- she loved swimming and it was the best she could do in London. There wasn’t anyone else there at the time and -- well.’ He clears his throat. ‘I’m told the community center has lifeguards now.’

‘I should bloody well hope so,’ Paul says.

‘Yes, well.’ Foyle swallows back the faint, familiar bitterness. 

‘I’m -- I don’t have anything -- Nothing that awful happened to me. Just a bad girlfriend.’ Paul smiles, obviously making an attempt to laugh the question off, but the expression doesn’t reach the corners of his mouth, let alone his eyes.

‘From what Alice says, something of a high water mark one.’

Paul stays still for a minute then sighs, and sits on the sofa. ‘It really wasn’t that terrible. Jane was -- I wasn’t what she wanted, but she was convinced I _could_ be. It was like -- she thought I was holding out on her. Deliberately not -- being what she thought I was just to be -- to be -- I don’t know what.’

‘Ah. Yes. Andrew had a girlfriend like that when he was younger. Strange young woman.’ Foyle winces as he hears the words: as if he has any right to comment on Paul’s past girlfriends. He looks down at the stove again; the fire is burning beautifully and this feeling of not knowing what to do with himself is odd. For lack of any better ideas, he stays where he is, telling himself it’s for the pleasant warmth from the stove and not from a sudden access of awkwardness over where to put himself.

‘It wouldn’t have been so… If -- she hadn’t blamed me for not being someone I’d never said I was.’ Paul shrugs, the tight clench of his fingers in his lap belying the careful casualness of his voice. ‘She seemed to feel I’d been lying to her.’

‘How long were you together?’

‘Three years.’ The words come out almost on a sigh and Paul shakes his head and tries to smile again. ‘Really -- I didn’t mean to make it sound like --’

‘I’m not…’ Foyle pauses. From a purely selfish point of view, he really could care less what the woman had wanted. Whatever it had been, she hadn’t gotten it and she hadn’t cared to take what was in front of her and that meant Paul was _here,_ now, with him. But it sounds absolutely horrible to say that, that he doesn’t _care_ what she did, because even without Alice’s somewhat obvious prompting, it doesn’t take special skill to see Paul’s wariness. 

Paul leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, as edgy as any witness Foyle had ever seen; he doesn’t even seem to be _breathing_ and Foyle is ready to offer to make tea, hot chocolate, hell, a full dinner if it will get that still, strained look off Paul’s face. He takes a step or two towards the door, trying to remember precisely what he has in the fridge.

‘She broke my leg,’ Paul blurts abruptly, then groans and drops his head in his hands. ‘Don’t, for God’s sake, tell Ally I said that.’

‘I won’t.’ Foyle is aware of keeping his voice even with an effort. It’s happened to him before, but it never fails to startle him how quickly the reflexes come roaring back to life when the situation calls for them. He’s already trying to remember names, departments, phone numbers--

‘Stop.’ 

There’s a tap and then a tug on his hand and he looks down at Paul.

‘I can see you--’ Paul shakes his head and waves his free hand. ‘--Policing. Stop. It’s all right.’

‘If she broke your leg--’ Foyle pauses and clears his throat. ‘It really _isn’t_ all right.’

Paul sighs and shakes his head again. ‘It wasn’t -- she didn’t -- it wasn’t intentional.’

‘That -- also isn’t the point.’ Foyle is distantly pleased with how even his voice is given he’s angry enough to have a distinct feeling of being not only overheated but oversensitized, as though every nerve has suddenly jumped into full action.

Paul huffs out something that might be an attempt at a laugh. ‘I know. If I thought she had _meant_ to do it, I -- it was just -- stupid. We were having an argument and -- I slipped.’

Foyle bites the inside of his cheek hard to keep from pointing out that this is the same story he’s heard from dozens of domestic violence victims. He could almost write it out as a script at this point, despite not having been on the force for seven years.

Paul groans again and tugs more firmly on Foyle’s hand. ‘Sit down. I can’t -- explain with you standing there like this is an interrogation.’

Foyle sits down, leaving a polite gap between himself and Paul which Paul immediately closes, pushing himself into Foyle’s space without preamble. He doesn’t let go of Foyle’s hand either, cradling it in both his own and pressing his thumb against the center of Foyle’s palm in a way that would be truly distracting in other circumstances. As it is, Foyle is aware of being caught between his desire to start making phone calls and his desire not to let go of Paul’s hands.

‘We were having a fight,’ Paul says, speaking slowly and carefully, fixing his gaze on their hands. ‘I went to leave and -- neither of us -- it was December. Last year. And it had been raining all afternoon and neither of us realised it had started to freeze outside and -- She pushed me just as I stepped out of the door and --’ He makes a movement with one hand like someone describing the arc of a rollercoaster. ‘That was that.’

‘She pushed you,’ Foyle repeats and sees Paul’s mouth draw thin.

Paul sighs, falling back against the couch and rubbing a hand over his face. ‘Yes, she pushed me. Yes, she had done it before. No, I never pushed her back.’

‘That wasn’t what I--’

‘It wasn’t --’ Paul searches for a word for a moment, then shrugs. ‘It wasn’t worth pursuing. Legally. I know I could have. I went to hospital and she was gone before I was even out of surgery.’

Foyle can’t, in the moment, decide which is worse: causing the injury or disappearing before the extent of the damage was known or dealt with. He’s also distantly grateful that Paul has never mentioned Jane’s last name; he has enough names that re-occur to him on sleepless nights as it is. ‘I’m...sorry.’ The words sound inadequate even before he finishes saying them. This was the part he had always been worst at -- some of his colleagues had seemed to have a magical knack for knowing the correct thing to say, not too much, not too little. He never had.

Paul squeezes his fingers. ‘No, you’re furious.’

Foyle starts and turns to look at him. Paul’s smiling at him and reaches up to touch the corner of his mouth, tracing a line along his jaw back to his earlobe. ‘You think you’re the only one who pays attention to people? I can hear it in your voice.’ He shakes his head. ‘It isn’t worth it, truly. _She_ isn’t worth it. I haven’t talked to her since that night, I’ve no idea where she is, and I’m perfectly fine with all of that.’

‘But, Paul, it’s not --’ The words tangle and Foyle has to pause. 'Even if it wasn’t _intentional--’_

Paul shakes his head again and leans forward, kissing the corner of Foyle’s mouth. ‘Stop policing.’

Foyle catches the back of Paul’s neck, pressing their foreheads together. ‘I’m not. It isn’t -- Paul, it just isn’t -- _right_ that someone should do that and -- not face consequences.’

Paul is silent for a minute, then he lets out a long breath, warm against Foyle’s cheek. ‘I know. But -- I don’t want to spend my life trying to make her face them.’ His thumb traces the line of Foyle’s jaw again and Foyle shivers, his free hand finding Paul’s knee. ‘And I really don’t want to talk about her any more just now if that’s all right with you.’ 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to the best of all betas, [elizajane](http://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane), [the Lady Kivrin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivrin).
> 
> Title from this marvellous Robert Frost poem I only just discovered: [The Bonfire](http://www.bartleby.com/119/19.html) (what the hell were people wasting my time with "Stopping By Woods..." for when there was _this?_ )


End file.
